This invention concerns a method for comparing the timekeeping state of an electronic timepiece in order to release a warning or reminder signal having various periods which may be programmed into a register by the user, such release taking place when the timekeeping state of the timepiece arrives at least partially in coincidence with the contents of the register. The invention furthermore concerns a logic circuit for carrying out the method and use of this circuit in a timekeeping microprocessor.
A logic circuit for an alarm watch is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,759,029. In this case the register must necessarily at all times store the indication of hours, minutes and seconds and the periodicity of the reminder is thus necessarily always the same i.e. daily. Circuits of the same type giving the reminder at a fixed periodicity and capable of comparing respectively from tens of hours down to seconds and from hours down to tens of minutes may be found described in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,745,761 and Swiss Pat. No. 534 386.
A weekly periodicity, but weekly only, may also be obtained by means of the circuit described in German patent application No. 26 43 993 which compares from days to minutes. A comparator for hours and minutes in a watch having ten reminders is furthermore exposed in the German patent application No. 21 17 756.
None of these proposals enable the user to control completely the periodicity which is determined once and for all from the reminder which is programmed therein. It also appears to be of great utility to the user to choose according to his own needs the periodicity of the reminders which he expects from his timepiece.